About

ESTABLISHING AN AVIATIONTRADITION

The Wichita Aero Club has been established to foster and promote interest in aviation, to provide a forum that focuses on the industry’s issues and achievements, and to bring together those with a passion for flight in an environment that expands and enhances professional relationships and furthers cooperation and understanding.

HISTORY OF THEWICHITAAEROCLUB

In 1915, when Wichita was still identified more with the Great Plains than great planes, the Wichita Aero Club was founded. The appropriate paperwork was filed in the state capital of Topeka, and the new group took the initiative to sponsor a balloon race in the fall of that year. It then promptly disappeared. No evidence of its continued operation could be found. No members were identified. No financial statements were filed. The original Wichita Aero Club apparently made one takeoff, one landing and never flew again. In 2008, however, a new Wichita Aero Club took off. After nearly a century of history that has included the manufacture of more airplanes in Wichita than in any other city on Earth, Wichita’s aviation community has come together to revive the Wichita Aero Club in “The Air Capital of the World.”